


The Tree Top Angel

by StarlightDragon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Christmas, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Tree, First Kiss, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Mistletoe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 05:34:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9057901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightDragon/pseuds/StarlightDragon
Summary: Mary Winchester always had the strangest angel on the top of her Christmas tree. He didn't look anything like most people's idea of an angel - in fact, he was wearing a trench coat. But Mary liked him, and Dean liked him, so he stayed. Not that Dean can really remember that far back... well, not until he meets a certain very real trench coated angel under the mistletoe.





	

**Author's Note:**

> anyway I know canon cas didn’t get his trench coat until 2008, but I also know canon cas can time travel, so TECHNICALLY this could be canon. also I just fucking love that trench coat
> 
> I wrote this for a 2016 secret santa gift exchange and it has now been delivered to its recipient, so I think I'm allowed to post it here too now for everyone. :)

Dean scampered down the stairs and crept through the door into the living room, being careful to avoid opening it so far that it squeaked. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be downstairs yet, but it was Christmas, and he didn’t want to wait any longer to open his presents. It wasn’t fair. He’d already had to wait a whole year, and any longer seemed like torture.

He jumped up in the air, trying to reach the lightswitch, but he still wasn’t quite tall enough. He’d grown a lot recently. His dad said he’d been going through a growth spurt, whatever that was, and that he was getting to be big and strong like a man. Dean didn’t feel very big and strong, not when he couldn’t even manage to turn on the light so that he could open his Christmas presents. But it was nice to think that one day he’d have his own house, and he’d be strong enough to carry his own tree and he could unwrap his presents any time he wanted. He could even unwrap them a whole day early! Maybe even two days!

He flopped onto the couch and buried his face in the cushions. There was no point opening his presents if he couldn’t even see what they were. He’d just have to wait. Again.

“Dean. Dean!”

Dean groaned, curling up in a ball and shrugging off the warm hand on his shoulder. He wasn’t sure how much later it was. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was even on the couch. But he knew it was comfortable, and that he still didn’t want to move quite yet.

“Dean, sweetheart, it’s Christmas Day! Don’t you want to open your presents?”

Dean shot up, suddenly awake, staring up at his mom and beaming. “Christmas!”

The light was on. He turned and dashed towards the tree, throwing himself down in front of it, sure that there were even more presents underneath that there had been last night. He ripped into the first one, finding a set of miniature cars that he was definitely going to spend ages driving all the way around the house, just as soon as he’d opened everything else that was under the tree.

Dean’s mom sat down next to him, letting out a low groan with the effort. “Just think, Dean. This is your last Christmas just the three of us. Next year, your little brother or sister will be there to share it with you.”

Dean poked Mary’s stomach, which was just starting to show. “It’s gonna be a girl, I know it.”

Mary chuckled. “We’ll see about that. But either way, it’ll be fun for you to have someone else around on Christmas, won’t it?”

Dean frowned, shaking his head and pouting. “No cause then less of the presents will be for me.”

As if to prove his point, he grabbed another present and tore off the paper, finding a book with a picture of a pie on the cover. “Look, pie!” he squealed.

“Yes, pie.” Mary ruffled his hair. “Pie recipes. I figured it’s about time you get to help make the pie. I’ll be there too, but we can make any kind you want, and it’ll taste even better because you helped make it yourself. How does that sound?”

“Really cool,” Dean said, already trying to decide what flavor he wanted to make first.

Just then, the door opened and Dean’s father walked inside, still in his pajamas, stretching. “Morning. Merry Christmas, darling. Merry Christmas, Dean.”

“Hi, Dad!” Dean said in a smaller voice than before. His dad was a little bit scary.

John glanced upwards and shook his head, frowning. “I don’t get what you like about that damn angel.”

Mary just grinned. “I think he’s cute.”

“Don’t see why we can’t have a star on top of the tree. At least stars are real, not like angels. And if we’re going to have a freaking angel, at least we should have a pretty girl in a white dress, not a man in a sack.”

“It’s a trench coat, dear. And I think it’s endearing. You’ve never seen an angel, how would you know what one looks like? They’d have to blend in, and the whole white robe and harp thing doesn’t exactly help with that.”

“Neither do the wings,” John pointed out, scowling up at the treetop angel with his fluffy black wings before leaving the room and going to make himself a pot of coffee.

Dean’s lip quivered as he glanced up at his mom. “Did Daddy say that angels aren’t real?

Mary shot a furious look towards the door before turning back to her son, pulling him into her lap. “Of course angels are real, love. All your dad meant was that he doesn’t think they look like the one I’ve put on the tree. But your dad doesn’t know everything, does he?”

Dean stared up at her with wide, trusting eyes. “No. You know everything.”

“Not everything. Just most things,” Mary whispered, pressing a kiss to the top of Dean’s head. “And I know for absolute definite that angels are watching over you.”

\--

More than thirty years later, Dean lugged a Christmas tree into the bunker, shaking off the snow that had gathered on it as he’d been carrying it home. Of course his idiot brother hadn’t offered to help him with the Christmas tree run, and he was going to get stuck doing all the decorating work for himself while Sam got to go on some cushy demon hunt with Cas and risk his life or some shit.

Dean grinned to himself, even underneath the weight of the tree. He couldn’t wait to have a family Christmas for the first time in years and an actual place to decorate (besides the mistletoe he hung from the Impala’s rearview mirror so that he could take girls ‘for a drive’).

He dumped the tree in the pot he’d set up in the living room and leaned against the door, rubbing his sore arms. For someone who spent half his days brandishing a shotgun, he really wasn’t very in shape. Must be the pie.

Dean spent the rest of the day stringing lights and tinsel all around the bunker, dumping piles of fake snow on the windowsills (with salt sprinkled in, because you could never be too careful when it came to carol singing demons), wrapping presents, baking gingerbread cookies, and hanging various decorations on the tree. He was almost done when he heard a key in the door, two familiar voices making their way towards him.

Rushing now, Dean fought to place the last few baubles, snowflakes, glittery bells and icicles onto the tree in time for the grand entrance. He had just unwrapped the angel from its tissue paper and was reaching to place it on top of the tree when a voice sounded from behind him.

“Can’t reach?”

Dean turned round, sticking out his tongue and making a rude noise at his laughing brother. “I’m fine.”

“Oh yeah? Should have got a smaller tree then, short arse.”

Dean rolled his eyes, longsuffering. If he’d just had a few extra minutes alone, he could have got a chair and put the angel on the tree just fine, but Sam just had to show up too early and laugh at him.

He shoved the angel into Sam’s hands and turned to Cas. “So? What do you think?”

He hoped Cas liked it. He really, really hoped Cas liked it. If he was being honest with himself, this was more for Cas than it was for himself or Sam – because it may have been a very long time since he and Sam had celebrated Christmas for real, but Cas had never, ever had the chance.

“You know, back when the concept of decorating Christmas trees was first introduced, it was customary to put a model of the baby Jesus on top of the tree, as the most important part of the Nativity story. It was only in more recent times that humans began using a star, to represent the star that guided the Three Wise Men to the manger, or an angel, to symbolize my brother who brought the good news of Jesus’ birth.”

Dean snorted, ruffling Cas’ hair. He supposed he’d expected nothing less from the guy. “Right, good story, but none of that ever happened, right? The star and the manger shit? That’s gotta be a story.”

Cas just raised an eyebrow, giving him a cryptic smile. “All I can tell you for sure is that there has never been an angel who looked like the one Sam is battling with over there.”

“No, I’ve sure as hell never seen one. But it was all they had in the shop. All that long golden hair, silver wings and halo, sparkly meringue dress crap.”

“I could perhaps construct you a more appropriate angel, with a more accurate number of heads, serpents, and limbs. Possibly set on fire,” Cas offered with a completely straight face.

Dean looked Cas up and down, shaking his head. “Dude, the whole point is to keep cursed objects out of this bunker, not invite them in. I wouldn’t want to invite someone for Christmas and then give them nightmares.”

“I was simply suggesting that you, as a hunter, may not want-“

Dean tilted his head to one side, looking at Cas like he’d never looked at him before. A memory was coming back to him from years ago, when he was very, very small. He didn’t really have many memories from the time before Sam was born, but this… he’d never spent a Christmas with both Sam and his mom, so it had to have been way back.

He remembered Mary, defending the angel on top of the tree, even though John had criticized her, just like Cas was doing now, saying it was nothing like a real angel…

“Hey, Cas, can I ask you something?”

Cas knotted his eyebrows, looking confused. “You may ask me anything, Dean.”

“Have you ever told anyone else this? Like, told them the story about Jesus on the tree and then complained about how angels don’t really look like that and told them you’re an angel too?”

“It is possible. I have lived a long life. I am not able to remember every Christmas I have ever experienced.”

Dean’s heart sank. Of course this wasn’t really Cas’ first Christmas. Of course he’d just been kidding himself when he was trying to make things special for him. Cas had been walking among humans for hundreds of years, and of course he’d been invited to spend the holidays with someone before now.

“Why do you ask?” Cas added, when Dean hadn’t spoken for a while.

Dean shrugged, trying to brush it off. “When I was a kid, my mom had an angel on top of the tree that looked kind of like you is all. Dark hair, trench coat, little tie, you know what I mean. So I thought, if someone else knew you, they might have designed the tree topper based off you. But it was a stupid thought. Must have been a coincidence.”

A small, soft smile spread over Cas’ face. “I… am not so sure it was. It does seem like a very human thing to do, does it not? To meet a real life angel of Heaven of the kind that, for most people, exists only in dreams and stories – and then, afterwards, to simply turn it into a sparkly piece of plastic that other people can put on top of their plant corpses? Who else, besides a human, would possibly think of that?”

Cas was staring off into space, a fond expression on his face, still smiling, and Dean supposed he had a point. He certainly couldn’t imagine anyone of a different species turning all powerful, knife wielding angel soldiers into benign Christmas decorations.

“Yeah, it’s a little weird now that you say it. I’ve met too many angels for this shit. Next year I’ll get a star. Or a baby Jesus. Or, hell, a little Impala for all I care. Not an angel.”

“I don’t mind,” Cas whispered, far closer than Dean remembered him being. “Although I have experienced many human Christmases in my time… I have never felt like I am part of one before. Thankyou for inviting me, Dean. I can tell you that this is one Christmas I am guaranteed not to forget.”

Cas was looking back at Dean now, with those really intense eyes that Dean couldn’t even look at for too long, for fear of being blinded by them, or worse, losing himself in them forever. He cleared his throat. “Uh, no problem, Cas. Happy to have you. You know you’re always welcome here.”

Cas bit his lip, nervous, and glanced upwards. “Mistletoe.”

Frowning, Dean looked at the ceiling. Just as Cas had told him, there was undeniably a small sprig of mistletoe hanging from just above their heads. It was an odd spot to put it – not over a doorway or any particular standing point, just in the middle of the room somewhere. And it definitely wasn’t supposed to be there.

“I, uh, I didn’t put that there! I swear it, Cas, it wasn’t there when I was decorating this room. It must have just… grown, for some reason! I didn’t put mistletoe anywhere!”

“I put it there. Just now,” Cas said calmly.

Dean’s mouth went dry. “That’s cheating.”

“Maybe so. But I believe there is still a human tradition associated with mistletoe. And as you seem to enjoy introducing me to Christmas traditions… it seems only fitting that you should honor this one too.”

Dean glanced around. Sam was gone – he must have smelled the warm gingerbread coming from the kitchen. So now he and Cas were the only two people in the living room. Alone, under the mistletoe…

His heart started beating faster, because this hadn’t been part of the plan. Christmas decorations, presents, movies, cooking, dinner, he wanted to introduce Cas to all of that, but he could do that and still pretend it was completely platonic. And he’d planned everything out so well. But here was Cas, interfering with all of his best laid plans, showing up and tricking Dean into getting all sentimental and then putting up the mistletoe that Dean had specifically stopped himself from buying, even though he’d spent a while staring at it, wondering what if…

“Dean?”

“Yeah, Cas. Yeah. Okay.”

Dean leaned in, keeping his eyes open for as long as he possibly could so that he could see the way Cas’ plump, slightly chapped lips parted for him, the way his cheeks had a pink tinge to them, the way the stubble dotted around his mouth looked rough, the complete opposite to his lips, or to anyone else Dean had ever kissed…

And then he was too close to keep his eyes open without seeing double.

“Merry Christmas, Cas,” Dean whispered against his lips, before closing his eyes and tilting his head and molding his lips to Cas’.

It was supposed to be a quick peck on the lips, that was the plan – a token gesture to get it out of his system and to fulfil the tradition before they both moved away and pretended it had never happened. But Cas let out a tiny whimper the moment their lips met, and Dean’s heart caught in his chest, beating out of rhythm, aching with how desperately he wanted to do more of this. Before he knew it, one of his hands was tangled in Cas’ hair, the other fisted in his trench coat, and Cas was clinging to him too, arms wrapped tight around Dean like it was the only thing keeping him alive, and the kiss was getting deeper and deeper, their tongues darting out of their mouths, neither of them able to tell which noise came from which of them.

Dean didn’t ever want the kiss to end, sure that whatever happened next couldn’t possibly be as good as this was. But eventually, they had to break apart, their lips sore and their eyes dark.

Dean averted eye contact as quickly as he could, and Cas looked around the room, at a loss for anything to say. Finally, he pointed to the mistletoe on the ceiling above. “I’ll remove this now, shall I?”

“No!” Dean’s eyes widened in shock. “I mean, don’t worry about it, I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble. You can leave it. Wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if we got stuck under it again, would it?”

Castiel beamed. “No, I don’t suppose it would.”

But that was by no means the only piece of mistletoe that mysteriously sprouted on the bunker ceiling during the holidays. Dean frequently found himself mysteriously confronted by mistletoe covered ceilings, always and exclusively when he and Cas were alone together – which, too, seemed to be happening more and more. On Christmas Eve night, Dean was just getting ready to climb into bed when his blanket suddenly sprouted a coating of mistletoe. Grinning, he ran to the door to invite Castiel inside.

And on Christmas Day as the three bunker residents opened their presents together, Dean’s eyes found the angel on top of the tree once more. Cas, wrapped up in one of Dean’s T-shirts, followed his gaze and smiled.

“You remember what you were telling me about your childhood tree topper that looked like me?”

Dean bumped his shoulder affectionately against Cas’. “Course I do.”

Castiel rested his head against Dean’s. “I have perhaps been watching over you for longer than either of us knew.”

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me about our favorite tree topper **[casandsip.tumblr.com](http://casandsip.tumblr.com)**


End file.
